Trump / Musk (other than DOGE) Omnibus Thread

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superrific said:
I hope someone prosecutes his ass for paying voters. That shit is very illegal. Josh Shapiro knows it. If Kamala wins, DOJ needs to prosecute that motherfucker and throw his ass in jail. Don't be scared of his lawyers. They can't do anything to protect him.
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He's not paying voters. He's paying people to sign a petition. Are you aware of any law against that (there may be, but I'd think it would have First Amendment problems under Citizens United).
 
Calheel said:
He's not paying voters. He's paying people to sign a petition. Are you aware of any law against that (there may be, but I'd think it would have First Amendment problems under Citizens United).
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There would not be First Am problems under Citizens United. I looked into this issue quite a bit a few years ago. I was thinking about writing on it.
 
Calheel said:
Where do you see that?
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electionlawblog.org

Elon Musk Veers Into Clearly Illegal Vote Buying, Offering $1 Million Per Day Lottery Prize Only to Registered Voters #ELB

Hugo Lowell: “Elon Musk says on stage at a town hall that America PAC will be awarding $1 million every day until the election to a registered Pennsylvania voter who has signed his petition. Musk awarded the first $1 million … Continue reading Elon Musk Veers Into Clearly Illegal Vote Buying...
electionlawblog.org electionlawblog.org

Rick Hasen thinks it is illegal. I am not so sure. Per the linked screen grab in the post, Musk is requiring that you need to be a registered voter to sign the petition. But you don't need to be a newly registered voter.

Paying $47 per registered voter signed up would seem to be closer, but if you are paying the canvaser, and not the voter, I am note sure how that is materially different than paying voter canvasers.

Edit -- thinking about the issue some more and re-reading Hasen's post, he makes a good point that the petition lottery is limited to registered voters in 7 swing states, which suggests that the intent is to induce new registrations and not to get people to sign the petition. The petition is simply a smokescreen to give him a colorable scienter defense. Still, I think that would be a hard case to prosecute, and even if a conviction were obtained, I could see this Supreme Court ultimately reversing on First Amendment grounds.
 
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superrific said:
There would not be First Am problems under Citizens United. I looked into this issue quite a bit a few years ago. I was thinking about writing on it.
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I just updated below. I don't think you could legally outlaw paying people to sign a petition. The registered voter issue makes it a little murkier.
 
Calheel said:
I just updated below. I don't think you could legally outlaw paying people to sign a petition. The registered voter issue makes it a little murkier.
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I don't think there is a constitutional right to pay people to sign a petition. That there is no applicable statute perhaps speaks to the perceived wisdom of such a rule, but I can't see how the First Am would bar it.

Paying a canvasser is completely different. That's an employment relationship. I don't think it's governed by the First Amendment. For instance, suppose a canvassing firm wanted to pay its canvassers below minimum wage. I don't think there would be a First Am defense to that. Do you?

Think about it in terms of practicality. It would be really, really hard to get enough signatures for ballots without paying people. It is not hard at all to get people to sign a petition without being paid. This speaks, I think, to my argument above that canvassing is an employment activity and not political activity, but you could also look at it from the perspective of strict scrutiny. A law outlawing canvassing would be broad, and perhaps unlikely to be narrowly tailored as required by any form of heightened scrutiny. A law outlawing paying for signatures is much more narrowly tailored toward the problem at hand.

I don't think it's a hard case. As you know, my experience in criminal law is limited so what I think about the difficulty of proving it isn't worth that much, but at least in theory I don't think it's hard.
 
superrific said:
I don't think there is a constitutional right to pay people to sign a petition. That there is no applicable statute perhaps speaks to the perceived wisdom of such a rule, but I can't see how the First Am would bar it.

Paying a canvasser is completely different. That's an employment relationship. I don't think it's governed by the First Amendment. For instance, suppose a canvassing firm wanted to pay its canvassers below minimum wage. I don't think there would be a First Am defense to that. Do you?

Think about it in terms of practicality. It would be really, really hard to get enough signatures for ballots without paying people. It is not hard at all to get people to sign a petition without being paid. This speaks, I think, to my argument above that canvassing is an employment activity and not political activity, but you could also look at it from the perspective of strict scrutiny. A law outlawing canvassing would be broad, and perhaps unlikely to be narrowly tailored as required by any form of heightened scrutiny. A law outlawing paying for signatures is much more narrowly tailored toward the problem at hand.

I don't think it's a hard case. As you know, my experience in criminal law is limited so what I think about the difficulty of proving it isn't worth that much, but at least in theory I don't think it's hard.
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The issue, as I understand it from the Hazen post linked above, is not the paid canvassers. It is the lottery for registered voters in swing states signing a petition.

I could see this Supreme Court saying Musk has a right to do what he is doing. After all, he is not vote buying - he is arguably registration buying, which is not that much different from a paid get out the vote campaign. After all, we supposedly think it is a societal good to have more registered voters.
 
nycfan said:
From link above:

“An initiative called Progress 2028 that purports to be Kamala Harris’ liberal counter to the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is actually run by a dark money network supporting former President Donald Trump.

Building America’s Future, the dark money group at the helm of the network, has steered money to a constellation of groups and initiatives boosting Trump’s agenda and spreading messaging aimed at chipping away voters from Harris. The dark money group reportedly received over $100 million in funding from billionaire Elon Musk, along with other donors, the New York Times recently reported.

The newest effort to benefit from their largesse is Progress 2028. Building America’s Future registered to use Progress 2028 as a fictitious nameon Sept. 23 and the website was created three days later, OpenSecrets’ analysis of corporate filings and DNS records found. …

Some of the policies listed in Progress 2028 highlight disproven and misleading claims about Harris’ positions. Policies listed include “Empowering Undocumented Immigrants, Building Our Future” and “Expanding Medicaid to Undocumented Immigrants.” …”
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Why isn’t the mainstream media reporting progress 2028? Elon Musk is a GD menace!
 
“… Many other titans of Silicon Valley have tethered themselves to Trump. But Musk is the one poised to live out the ultimate techno-authoritarian fantasy. With his influence, he stands to capture the state, not just to enrich himself.

His entanglement with Trump will be an Ayn Rand novel sprung to life, because Trump has explicitly invited Musk into the government to play the role of the master engineer, who redesigns the American state—and therefore American life—in his own image.

… Like so many other billionaire exponents of libertarianism, he has turned the government into a spectacular profit center. His company SpaceX relies on contracts with three-letter agencies and the Pentagon. It has subsumed some of NASA’s core functions. Tesla thrives on government tax credits for electric vehicles and subsidies for its network of charging stations. By Politico’s tabulation, both companies have won $15 billion in federal contracts. But that’s just his business plan in beta form. According to The Wall Street Journal, SpaceX is designing a slew of new products with “national security customers in mind.”

… Musk will advocate for privatizing the government, outsourcing the affairs of state to nimble entrepreneurs and adroit technologists. That means there will be even more opportunities for his companies to score gargantuan contracts. So when Trump brags that Musk will send a rocket to Mars during his administration, he’s not imagining a reprise of the Apollo program. He’s envisioning cutting SpaceX one of the largest checks that the U.S. government has ever written. He’s talking about making the richest man in the world even richer. …”
 
“… This isn’t a standard-issue case of oligarchy. It is an apotheosis of the egotism and social Darwinism embedded in Silicon Valley’s pursuit of monopoly—the sense that concentration of power in the hands of geniuses is the most desirable social arrangement.

As Peter Thiel once put it, “Competition is for losers.” (He also bluntly admitted, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”) In this worldview, restraints on power are for losers, too.

… At a moment when the government is confronting crucial decisions about the future of AI and the commercialization of space, his [Musk’s] ideals will hold sway.

… At Tesla, Musk assigned himself the title of “technoking.” That moniker, which sits on the line between jokiness and monomania, captures the danger.

Following the example set by Trump, he wouldn’t need to divest himself from his businesses, not even his social-media company. In an administration that brashly disrespects its critics, he wouldn’t need to fear congressional oversight and could brush aside any American who dares to question his role. Of all the risks posed by a second Trump term, this might be one of the most terrifying.”

Wizard Of Oz GIF
 
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